This Self-Healing E-Bandage Accelerates Wound Healing By Generating An Electric Field Over It

There are people who¡¯s wounds heal slowly and then there are people who¡¯s wounds heal faster than a lot of others. For the those who heal slowly, this can be just the type of band-aid they are looking for.

Researchers from the University of Wisconsin in the US and University of Electronic Science and Technology of China have developed a flexible, self-powered bandage that can convert the movement of your skin into a therapeutic electric field.

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The self-powered bandage generates an electric field of energy over an injury that dramatically reduces the healing time for a wound. The team made a wearable nanogenerator by overlapping sheets of polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE), copper foil and polyethylene terephthalate (PET).

The nanogenerator converted skin movements, which occur during normal activity or even breathing, into small electrical pulses. This current flows into two working electrodes that are placed on either side of the skin wound to produce a weak electric field.

Wounds covered by e-bandages closed within three days, compared with 12 days for a control bandage with no electric field. The researchers attribute the faster wound healing to enhanced fibroblast migration, proliferation and differentiation induced by the electric field.

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Chronic skin wounds include diabetic foot ulcers, venous ulcers and non-healing surgical wounds.

Doctors have tried various approaches to help chronic wounds heal thus far, including bandaging, dressing, exposure to oxygen and growth-factor therapy, but they often show limited effectiveness.

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While the skin has a remarkable ability to heal itself, in certain cases, wounds heal very slowly or not at all, putting a person at risk for chronic pain, infection and scarring. The e-bandage could offer a solution that is much needed for a large majority of the population.